


The Private Diary of Armsman Szabo

by Tel



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Beta Colony, Other, Translations by Tel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tel/pseuds/Tel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armsman Szabo has faithfully served his lady and intends to faithfully serve his lord - the same way? A Russian fic by ivor-severs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Private Diary of Armsman Szabo

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Личные записи оруженосца Милоша Сабо](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2149) by ivor-severs. 



> Please do not hesitate to leave comments on translated Russian works.
> 
> With thanks to Philomytha for English beta-reading and jetta-e and ivor-severs with help with translation.

The narrow and utilitarian Betan hotel mirror reflected a tall woman adjusting her pinned-back black hair. A gray-haired man in black reached out to help, but the lady waved her hand at him impatiently.

"Leave it. It'll be gone tomorrow. It'll all be gone!" She made a frivolous motion with her hand, gesturing from her neck to the modest cleavage on her black dress.

"Think carefully about this, milady. Think of the risk."

In the dimly-lit, gray-walled room, the two talked quietly and abruptly, like conspirators. But nobody here cared who they were, where they had come from, or why they had come to the Betan capital.

The lady smiled. "You seem more eager to dissuade me than help. Reflect soberly on this, my dear Armsman. What do we see before us?" She took a few impatient steps, obviously accustomed to more spacious premises. "A Vor divorcee of forty-one. What does she have to look forward to? Menopause? Her memoirs? Breeding cats? That's all." She paused, leaning against the wall, and spread her hands wide. "Risk attracts me more than inevitability. At forty-one, a man's life is just begun, but a woman's is over. I will not miss the opportunity to start my life anew."

"But what about a new life on another planet? With a man who, despite humble origins, is rich enough to ensure you have a decent life, and completely devoted to you, as you well know. I… did mention the large inheritance I received?"

"I've already said that I will never marry another man, Milosz. Despite your considerable virtues, of which I am well aware."

With those last enticing words she took a step forward, placing both hands on his chest as if accepting an invitation to slow-dance. The armsman demurred, turning away to avoid her eyes. He stood stiffly at attention, taking a half-step back against the wall.

"Well, milord." His voice was dull. "If your decision is final, so be it."

The woman laughed and shook her hair, which escaped the pins and swung at liberty. "You mean you don't want to say goodbye to my withering charms?" She went into the adjoining room, unbuttoning her jacket as she went.  
One last time, she turned in the doorway.

"Look. You'll be sorry."

* * *

  


"Look. You'll be sorry."

This was the last thing Lady Donna Vorrutyer told me.

Now, when the problems of finding a decent clinic, acquiring lodging on Beta, and negotiating payment on a Barrayaran credit chit are solved…

Now, when I can only sit in the gray-white hallway and wait, I understand that she was right. I am truly sorry. I will never hear her voice again, murmuring 'No-one's ever been as good as you.' Never feel her trembling under me in the hot depths of passionate joy. Never see her upturned face shining like the son in the morning. I'm nothing but an arrogant, pathetic fool. How could I give up the honor she so graciously bestowed on me last night?

The operation is lasting too long. I look around for a clock, waiting for the hours to pass. It seems an eternity is going by while I sit and wait for Betan surgeons to make a man out of the only woman I've ever loved.

* * *

Finally, the nurse appeared at the end of the hall. Betan medical staff are always smiling, so it's always hard to know what's really going on.

"Come with me, he wants to see you."

I jumped up.

"Don't worry, all went well." She smiled a little wider. "Your partner has lost more blood than usual, because he insisted the operations be performed simultaneously. Otherwise there were no complications."

Dono was on a high narrow bed, covered with a blanket from the waist up and covered with bandages up to the top of his neck. The bandages looked clean. But when I imagined what was now under them instead of the high, rounded breasts my hands remember, I felt faint.

"If you're going to swoon, please don't fall across the bed. I'm bad enough off already."

The sarcasm was typical of Donna in difficult moments, but the voice that spoke it was hoarse and barely audible. Dono took a deep breath and frowned.

"The light… please turn it off."

His voice sounded as polite and weary as it had been on the day Count Pierre died. Then, at the very moment she asked me to light a candle for her, I realized I needed to be with Donna and help her. I flattered myself with hope, then, that I was indispensable and she needed me.

And now here I was.

The hospital room plunged into greenish twilight, but I could still see him glance at me, lost and questioning.

"I feel terrible," milord muttered, and closed his eyes.

His hand twitched, and he reached upward with an open palm – a timid, confiding movement which I couldn't help but answer. The pained forehead wrinkle smoothed as his breathing became more even. His fingers slowly relaxed, and milord went to sleep.

Yet I'd vowed, yesterday, never to touch him.

* * *

"Destiny comes from character. And character cannot be changed." I heard this as I came out of Dono's room in the morning. Patients were watching a holovid in the hall. As the holovid continued to broadcast, I left to get some sleep. The accidental phrase seems prophetic now, especially after a sleepless night.

* * *

"Dono is recovering very quickly," the doctor beamed. "Most of his indications are already normal, and further hospital stay isn't necessary. But there must be no stress on the reproductive system for at least another month. It is important for the health of your partner. Do you understand?

The Betan winked and looked at me expectantly. I was compelled to respond.

"No stress. I promise."

'Your partner', again. The Betans think we're husband and wife, judging by their behavior. They seem to have difficulty imagining any relationship between two people that isn't sexual. Donna had been very amused by this, but I also have to endure it in order to avoid unnecessary explanations.

"And here's the report of the cosmetic surgeon," the Betan Asclepius continued cheerfully. "Dono is fortunate to have a face that is masculine enough naturally to make cosmetic surgery unnecessary. Except that perhaps here and here there could be a few tweaks…" The picture of Dono on the screen changes, becoming subtly different.

"No! He needs to remain the same person."

"I understand." The Betan's face broke into a smile. "As you've both agreed."

* * *

In our last conversation, milady mentioned that she was afraid of losing her youth. In my opinion, she only grew more beautiful with age. Perhaps a little plumper in recent years, but it became her immensely. Her faint wrinkles and the shadows around her eyes softened the sharp facial features of her youth, making her seem more feminine and giving her an expression of humility and melancholy tenderness.

Now I watch as a distinctly different look clearly emerges from the features of my beloved. It was emerging even before the operation, when Donna was wearing the shoulder patch that saturated her blood with testosterone. Donna! Where are you, my love? You remain only in memories, and even when we return to Barrayar, I will not find you in the dim living room of the Vorrutyer castle or in our favorite corner of the park.

Instead I received from the Betan clinic a dark-eyed man with a crew-cut looking maybe twenty-five. He wears his arrogant good looks like a pimp wears fake rings, and he makes the most vulgar jokes.

It is done. Lord Dono Vorrutyer is no different from other men in appearance or behavior. Correction – no different from Betan men. It's my duty to teach him to pass without suspicion on Barrayar. Dono has promised to listen to my guidance within reason. A limited promise.

With me, he behaves like he did before… almost like he did before. It's nonsense, though. This person is not the one I knew before.

He talks to me just like Donna talked to me. The same way, but somehow entirely different.

His behavior is blatantly obscene. But here no one notices but me.

Or rather, his behavior is ambiguous enough to be suspicious on Barrayar. That's what it is. That's a little more accurate. The more often I correct him, the more he teases me. (Only me, at least. I'm grateful for that.)

Inattention? Deliberate cruelty? Does he know how much I'm tormented by the memory of what I lost?

I have to forget about it. As they say – you do what you must, and accept what comes from it.

* * *

Dono violently scratched his chin.

"Milosz, buy me some depilatory cream."

"No."

"If you don't, I'll scrape the damn thing off myself with a kitchen knife. You can't imagine how this itches!"

"I know it does, milord. But in your position a beard seems more appropriate to me. Did the doctors not warn you that the sex-change operation would make you look younger?"

The next day Dono took a quick glance in the mirror and started laughing.

"I have a red beard! By the spirits of my ancestors, I swear that's not normal. I look like a calico!"

He was being a bit too dramatic, but I smiled at the comparison. Black hair, pale face, and – yes! The three day stubble on his cheeks truly was copper.

"Consider, milord, your Voraronberg grandmother," I suggested. "In her family the men are known for their red beards and the women for their fertility."

"Now you see I was destined to be male from the beginning! After all, as far as fertility goes…"

Dono twirled his hand in the air like a ballet dancer, indicating playful resignation – something that at home would instantly decide the fate of Vorrutyer's District, and not in his favor.

"Stop, stop, stop! Where did that gesture come from?"

"What gesture?"

"It's a disgrace! Even Lady Donna never would have done such a thing!"

Dono's laughter was uproarious, but he soon contained it. "I think it's from joie de vivre," he said in his sober baritone.

"I think you picked it up from those Betan whores."

"Milosz, don't call hermaphrodites sluts, it's politically incorrect."

My teeth clenched. Countless Vorrutyer ghosts, when will he stop tormenting me?

As for the beard, Dono did not rest until it was dyed.

* * *

Donna's informality, the privilege of a great lady to her vassal, was laced with double meaning. Her words came from the shadows of the bedroom, but she spoke them with impunity even in the broad light of day.

I swore fealty to Donna without hesitation, and every word of that oath bound me fully to her. I confess, I foolishly believed that another vow would join the two of us in time.

Whatever it is that she was, I now faithfully serve the one she has become.

* * *

It's just a few days before departure. I was thinking about how strange it is that this ugly and cramped Betan hotel room now seemed so comfortable and familiar that I didn't want to leave. I don't know what Dono was thinking as he stared at the screen of the room's Betan comconsole.

"I found a fashion studio that produces costumes for models, milord. You need Barrayaran mourning clothes," I reminded him.

"Thanks." Dono sounded thoughtful. "You don't have to call me that, you know," he unexpectedly added. "Here on Beta Colony, everyone is equal."

"Milord, you can't wish to stay here. I have given oath to you and appeal to you by the customs of our people."

"You've pledged your word to me. Indeed."

He stood and stepped towards me. Although the most concerning thing in the medical reports was the disgusting familiarity of the Betan doctors, I was worried about his pallor.

"Do you remember what you said? Repeat the words to me."

"Yes. By heart." And I repeated what I had once sworn.

"…until my death or my lord's releases me, to serve, soul and body, with honor…"

"That's right," he interrupted.

I will destroy this entry.

He was close to me, and kissed me on the lips. His mustache prickled like hay and smelled of bergamot. What's worse, he drank out of my mouth the memory of all of Donna's kisses, so that I do not even remember them or dream of what they were.

Then he stepped back and continued, his voice calm like nothing had happened.

"I like my people to stay with me." He lowered his eyes and grinned. "And because you are mine…"

I froze, feeling his gaze on me, heavy and warm.

Through the thin fabric of my clothes, I felt naked to his sight, like I'd just awoken from a shameful dream. Dumb, unwittingly, I answered 'yes' – it wasn't even a question.


End file.
